Impulse
by SilverCascade
Summary: Matt doesn't know how to talk to classy women. Wedy doesn't know how to handle inquisitive young men. Technically canon-compliant, but leaning towards AU. Slight Aiber/Wedy. One-shot.


**I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in the winter, how they're experts at letting things go.**

**~Jeffrey McDaniel**

* * *

Matt might not have been waiting for anyone, but the attractive woman next to him sure was. The night had settled around them like a cloud; it was but six o'clock when they arrived, some strange synchronisation of the universe, and they'd stood there together in the dimming alleyway until the sun was swallowed by the black maw of the night. It was his regular spot, a street where quietude gnawed at the air and the glow of the houses and shops opposite cast a wan yellow haze onto the evening. There were no stars tonight, which sucked; his best pickup line involved comparing a girl's eyes to the jewels in the sky. It was a classic and they loved it. But this stranger's gaze was hidden behind shiny sunglasses.

The streetlamps spilled their angled rays over them both, and Matt tried to check her out without being too obvious. Bright blonde hair - too blonde to be natural - and a likely-real mink hat on top. Her eyes could've been blue, or grey, or hazel. Who the hell wore shades at night anyway? But despite the limitations of what he could see of her face, her body was wrapped tight in a catsuit; if the light didn't reflect her curves and angles just so - and there were more curves than angles, mmm - she would have become one with the night. Matt wondered how that specific shade of scarlet lipstick would look wrapped around his -

"Stop staring for a second and give me your light." It was a command, and the way her lips curled around the cigarette, as if they were used to having something fancier like a quellazaire to assist, did something to his knees and - his stomach. That was correct; it was his _stomach_ that tingled. Passing over his lighter, a small silver thing bought for practicality alone, he looked at her again, some dark angel shrouded in a yellow stain. White teeth glittered in the haze, and her red talons were painted with the blood of her enemies. Matt gulped as subtly as he could. He took the cigarette from his lips, trying to direct his eyes to the curls and waves leaving his mouth. Whoever she was, she probably ate guys like him for breakfast.

As she handed back the lighter, a quick "Thank you," and a nod his rewards, he bit the live mouse sitting on his tongue; there was never a bullet, despite the infamous saying.

"So, what's a lady like yourself doing in a place like this? As much as I'm digging the Black Widow costume, Halloween was two months ago." Punctuated with a friendly laugh and... perfect. When she turned to him, the crease in her brow told him all he needed to know. But still, she spoke, slowly and in a languorous drawl.

"Keep your nose out of grown-up business, kid."

Well, there was no harm in trying just once more, was there? Matt smiled, only a _little_ offended at the condescending title. She couldn't be that much older than him, or he wouldn't have bothered with this game.

"Your boyfriend's in the business too?" And then, like a sheet of plastic pulled back from a new packet of smokes, he realised. She was more like Selina Kyle than Natasha Romanov. You didn't look like _that_ and harbour the right side of the law.

The fact she pulled her sunglasses down to stare at him over them hurt more than her look. Her eyes were the pale green of seafoam, though, and lined in a clean black wing. Now he knew.

She cocked her head and looked at the opening in the road, turning her back on him. Curious, he stepped forward, and then he heard the footsteps. If that was her boyfriend, he'd have to run fast - his car was parked across the street. Actually, if she decided she wanted to use his jugular as a new bottle of nail polish, he'd have to run _twice_ as fast. The aerodynamics of a catsuit far outmatched his baggy sweater.

Matt closed his eyes, breathing in the heat of the smoke; his, hers, it didn't matter. It was a communal thing, and they had bonded over it whether they wanted to or not. The action was familiar, and that sameness united even the coldest of strangers. Ah, it might rot your lungs, but it warmed your heart too. Unless your fellow smokers were assholes, in which case you were stuck until you finished your stick and could sneak back inside after a lame excuse or ten.

"Aiber." As she spoke, a man turned the corner. A whole head taller than Matt, twice as broad at the shoulders, and blessed with the cheekbones of a Greek deity, if it hadn't been for his odd attire - paisley shirts and purple blazers, what was this, the 70s? - and relaxed stance, the boy would have scrammed. Also, the word she had spoken intrigued him. Was it some sort of foreign greeting? An instruction? A secret code to issue the death of everyone within a ten-meter radius?

"It's so good to see you, Wedy!" Before she could protest, their hands were intertwined in a shake, and then she was hugging him. Or he was hugging her; it was difficult to tell, because his massive body blocked the light. Either way, they were not brother and sister, unless Matt had woken up in the Folger's commercial without realizing it.

Also, was Aiber a_ name?_ Foreign, built like a male model, and affectionate... Matt was _so_ out of his league. Wedy was a nice enough name, but he had a feeling it wasn't genuine; everything about her was so calculated, so perfectly listless that it had to be planned. Why would her name be any different?

The frost only descended when she'd pulled herself from Aiber's embrace, and he had only let her go after she threatened to gouge out his eyeballs with her fingernails. She looked at Matt, her friend slinking into the shadows in a single step, and a rock rose to his throat. Each eye was a dagger, stabbing his mind and maybe even his heart. Though it felt too low to be his heart; if she had thrust a dagger into the centre of his chest, it would not have felt any different.

Of course he understood her look. Of course he thought it'd be fun to defy it. Matt Jeevas did not give in to any authority figure, ever, nuh-uh. And some hot chick smoking Marlboros beside him wasn't going to intimidate him away from _his_ regular spot. Matt stared coolly back, lifting the cigarette to his lips again.

When Aiber stepped into the light, the grin had left his face. Confusion scrawled onto his features made him look older, the hollows of his cheeks contoured by harsh shadows. Warm blue eyes darted from Wedy to Matt and back again, no more than a quick, assessing flicker; though Matt felt his skin crawl, he didn't move a limb. His empty stare looked straight through the blond man and his ridiculous shirt and at the back wall that still shone after the noon's rain. He only started when Aiber broke the silence with a boom.

His laugh was so full of warmth and genuine delight that the foot resting against the wall slipped and hit the other kneecap when the boy leaped in surprise; Matt squealed, cigarette falling from his open lips as he clamped one hand around the throbbing knee. Wedy's cold glare was now on Aiber, whose booming laugh was the only sound in the quiet, quiet night.

"This kid won't leave me alone," she said finally, rubbing her hands. Aiber handed her a pair of gloves, as tight and as black as her catsuit, which she slipped on as he spoke. Matt hung back, watching.

"I'm surprised you let him stick around for this long," Aiber commented. "Do you need him for something?"

As if considering his words seriously, she cast a glance over Matt. He might as well have been naked, so piercing was her stare, and she did not gloss over any inch of him by moving too fast. She took an age, and by the time she was finished, the tension in his muscles was unbearable.

"No," she stated. Aiber held out his muscular arm, and though Wedy rolled her eyes, she slid hers through the loop. They turned and walked away from Matt, talking so quietly he couldn't hear them, heading for the slanting yellow-orange light that spilled from the rooftops and balconies in the distance. Their heads were together, Aiber leaning in to hear her, whilst Wedy's neck remained still and poised.

Matt watched them go, unable to bring himself to follow. It seemed some things were meant to be strange. Some things were meant to be contemplated later, or not contemplated at all. Some people were meant to be met and then forgotten.


End file.
